I was Saturday years old

Finished reading a book, "Committed to Memory: 100 Best Poems to Memorize". Way too heavy on the 17th and 18th century male writers so I can't really recommend it. It's going in the give away box. 

However, a poem at the beginning struck me. 

Not like the brazen giant of Greek,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her  mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she. 
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddle masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Sen these, the homeless, tempest-post to me,
I life my lamp beside the golden door!"

Here I thought those words were at the beginning of a poem or perhaps the entirety of the poem. Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus. 

Beverage:  Dark Chocolate Cocoa

Deb

 

How Was Your Summer, Part 6

I might have had a lot on my mind at the end of June, beginning of July. But helping Becky find a forever home for the waif in the bathroom was never far away. I posted and reposted the photos. I sent inquiries to no-kill shelters in the east and southeast Virginia area. All were full of kittens. They empathized, but no one was willing to take a kitten. Then a co-worker of Becky's came forward.

She would provide the kitten with a home. Her son had seen the photos and was in love. They would come get the girl the week before I was slated to come to Virginia on vacation. I was thrilled. Then it all fell apart.

I'm not privy to why it fell apart; it just did. We were back to square one. Becky was devastated. "I don't know what to do. It can't live in my bathroom. At some point, Zia (one of her dogs), is going to figure out how to get the door open and I fear Zia will kill her. And there's the whole allergy thing." I looked around my house. I have two girls I adore. Was my house and my heart and life big enough for a kitten? I decided it was and I offered to take the kitten if no one came forward.

Becky pushed everyone at the hospital where she worked. She showed countless people the photos. No one wanted her. So, the day after I arrived, she and Jon came to Carole and Larry's to play games and to bring this little gal, who I was taking home with me. I couldn't come up with a girl's name. I struggled and struggled. I always told myself that if I ever got to name a female cat again, she would be called "Rosalind", after the main character in Shakespeare's As You Like It, one of my favorite plays. But, as I drove east, it just didn't sit right. I finally settled on "Esme", for "Esme Weatherwax", a character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. I don't really like Esme, but nothing seemed quite right.

"The naming of cats is a difficult matter. It isn't just one of your holiday games." --T.S. Eliot; Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. 

We put the kitten in my bedroom with food, water and her litter box. The bedroom was about twice the size of the bathroom, plus, there were windows she could look out. She warmed up to me almost instantly and spent half of the night sleeping either on or next to me. We let her come out of the room, supervised, the next day. Carole's cats were unimpressed, except for Jacen and Jaina. Jaina was upset and hissed, growled and spit at the kitten when it came out of the room. Jacen, on the other hand, was really excited to meet Esme and the two of them chased each other, tumbling around on the carpet under the bed. Becky had done a very good job of socialization. There was one problem. This was not a girl. This was a boy.

We had a huge laugh. In Becky's defense, she'd never cared for kittens so had no idea what to look for, shall we say. Well, that changes the naming convention, doesn't it. Esme Weatherwax went right out the window. Immediately, I knew what his name would be, "Hamlet". I don't know why; I just knew. My first cat had been named "Shakespeare". This felt right.

On Monday, July 18th, I left Virginia at 5 in the morning with a kitten under the passenger seat of the car. That's where he stayed the entire trip home, coming out only to use the litter box and to have food and water. When I stopped for food myself, I would check on him. He was quite the trooper. The next day, he went to the vet.

Becky had mentioned she supplemented the wet and dry food with milk supplement for kittens for the first couple of weeks he lived with her. My vet was impressed. He seemed healthy. She felt he was around 4 months old which would be consistent with his size and needing milk supplement when Becky found him. We drew blood to check for feline leukemia. He had ear mites, which was to be expected and he also had fleas. I wound up having to treat everyone for fleas from July through last month. But other than those issues, he's a healthy kitten.

He spent the rest of July and most of August living in the office. I would go in and play with him but contact with the girls was minimal. I would put him in my bedroom and leave the door open so the girls could go into that room and smell his scent. After being in the office for a month, I let him out when I was home. Over Labor Day, I let him out at night, too. No one was allowed into the basement through the month of September, something Pilchard was not pleased with. My rationale was that he needed to learn his name and to come when I called. There are so many hiding places in the basement. One step at a time. He was spayed in September, getting the rest of his shots at that time, too.

There was a lot of hissing, yowling and growling. I opened the basement up in mid-October and allowed Hamlet to go outside during the end of October, when we had some wonderfully warm afternoons and weekends.

But have I made the right decision? Mija and Pilchard are not happy.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Happy Season

Part of the sewing experience is there are times when I have to sit and pin or sit and hand sew. In those times, I like to pop in a movie or have the TV on to be glanced at. I consider my crafting ancestors and realize this is an anomaly. They would not have had TV, radio, DvDs or Blu-Ray movies to occupy their time when they were darning socks or stitching up a dress or two. Yet there is something about that "background noise" which makes projects go a bit faster than a house with no artificial sounds.

As I was pinning sleeves onto the latest shirt to be completed, I popped in the quintessential Halloween movie. You'll recognize it.

That's right, it's "Nightmare Before Christmas". This is my second favorite line in the movie. "And since I am dead, I can take off my head and recite Shakespearean quotations." I have to chuckle at this since a great number of ghosts permeate Shakespeare's plays and deliver important lines to further on the plot.

My absolute favorite lines are spoken by this character at this time in the movie.

If you don't know the movie, the mayor shows up at Jack Skellington's house to go over the plans for next Halloween. Jack, having a crisis of identity, is out wandering about and is not home. After ringing the bell twice, the mayor goes from happy to this pleading face.

"Jack, I'm only an elected official. I can't make decision by myself." When I see the current crop of presidential candidates, of either party, trot themselves out and start brandishing whatever policy they think can get them elected, I think of this character and simply laugh.

The only other thing I need to watch is "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and Halloween will be in full force. Time to change the fall wreath on the door to the one with ghosts on it.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Day 4- A Book that reminds you of home

As I don't look ahead in the list, I don't know what the next topic is. I'm forcing myself not to over think these. What is the first book that comes to mind when I see the topic? This was the first head scratcher.

The first thing that popped into my head was My Antonia by Willa Cather. But, as I thought about it, it doesn't relate much to home. It's a good book and you should read it, but, for me, it doesn't fit this theme.

Well, what is home? I have lived in Wheaton for 30 years now. I need to do a blog post on that but I first have to find some representative photos to scan for the post. Thirty years is a long time to live in one place. We are a nation of wanderers. I remember reading that the average family stays in a home from 3-5 years before moving to something that more meets their needs. I am, it would seem, something of an anomoly in living in the same place for such a long time. What's interesting is I'm not the person whose been on the block the longest. But I will say that my block has quite a bit of permanence to it. We went through a time when a few homes were turning over every 2-3 years, but we now have families who are quite content to have their kids grow up here, within walking distance of an elementary school, and a short drive to everything else.

And yet, when I talk about "home", it's not Wheaton. I've blogged about this before, how I am indelibly attached to Iowa although I haven't lived there since the 1970's. I have a WOW friend (meaning I met him while playing World of Warcraft) who could not wait to leave when he graduated college. "Deb, if I don't get out, I fear I will be stuck here forever." Part of me identifies with that. Who wants to feel they are stuck? But I can think of worse, much worse places to be 'stuck' than in Iowa.

So, contemplating all these things, I remembered a book I have in the pile and selected it. This is the best of the images I could find online. This is an oversize book that is a reproduction of postcards from the turn of the 19th-20th Century Iowa. I thought the book cover was a light blue background, not pink. I'll have to check.

Why select this? Well, I grew up at a time and in a place where life was not the hectic and often brutal pace we find now. It still isn't. Yes, you can get WiFi, DSL, cable and all those other 'modern' conveniences we have come to take as necessities. But you can also find horse-drawn wagons, threshing machines, corn boils, kids playing stick ball in the park with nary a supervisory adult in attendance. Places shown on the postcards are recognizable and, "Hey! That building is still standing." For me, there is an instant connection to what I remember growing up.

Is this total nostalgia? Yes, yes it is. I don't wish for things to be like they were. We didn't have air conditioning and this summer would have been beyond brutal. I like visiting the past. I don't think I'd like living there again.

And that's what this book means to me. It reminds me of a past I lived and enjoyed at the time. I might have been 70 years removed from when the first Model T wandered down main street in Dubuque, but I knew people who remembered that event.

The title refers to the movie "Field of Dreams".

John Kinsella: Is this heaven?
Ray Kinsella: It's Iowa.
John Kinsella: Iowa? I could have sworn this was heaven. 

Maybe, in a way, it is heaven for some of us.

Beverage:  Edinburgh's Finest tea

Deb

Least Favorite

Day 2 in the 30 Day Book Challenge is your least favorite. That also was quite easy. I have two books I wouldn't pick up again if they were free. And, if stranded on a deserted island with only these two, I would not read them, that's now much I dislike them.

It's well known I don't like Lord of the Flies by William Golding. I may dislike it but it should be in the canon of literature. The themes he tackles in this book are as relevant today as they were when it was published in 1954. (I have not read ahead on the list so this may come up again.)

People cast aside Moby Dick by Herman Melville but I rather enjoyed it. I may be visiting this book some time this month.

The two books I don't like are Cavedweller by Dorothy Allison and The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene.

I came upon this book when I worked at The Bookstore. I had finished a book and was looking for something to read. This had been a featured book in several book clubs and one of the other sales people had read it. She said it was very well written and very good.

I quit half way through.

Depressing doesn't cover it. I could find no redeeming qualities in the main character. I didn't understand her motivations. I felt the problems she got into were manufactured just because the author thought, "Oh well, I've written 10 pages with nothing bad happening, let's kill off her dog." I'm not one for depressing narratives and I finally set it aside, eventually adding the book to a give away box.

And then there is The Power and the Glory.

My high school English teacher gave me a list of a dozen books she felt I needed to read and this was on it. She loaned me the book and I took to it eagerly. It is considered, along with Lord of the Flies, to be one of the best English-language novels. It deals with a time period in Mexican history where the government was trying to suppress the Catholic Church.

In the book, a priest must go into hiding yet minister to his flock. Anti-clerical soldiers dodge him as he travels across a section of Mexico toward the north and freedom. What angered me and caused me to never finish this book was that the priest turns back and heads right into the camp of the soldiers and certain death, with no logical reason why he would do so. He wasn't saving anyone. He had been helped along the way and had done an admirable job of helping the poor and those who relied on him. No one had died for sheltering him. He just suddenly, as far as I could tell, decides, with the northern border in view, with his safety just a 3 hour walk, with people ready to make sure he got to that border, turns back towards the soldiers following him when he knows he will be killed. I couldn't understand it and reread the last 3 chapters up to the point of that decision at least 4-5 times to see what I could have missed. I was so upset at this decision, I read the last page of the book, closed it and have no desire to pick it up again.

I understand that the best writing sometimes leaves motivations behind for a compelling story. I also kept reading, devouring the prose, because I was convinced the priest would get within 100 feet of the border and he would be shot dead because someone would have betrayed him. I would have been angry but it would have been a more satisfying ending. I didn't feel the priest should make it to freedom because he was serving as an allegory but this turn of events just made me so angry. I handed the book back to my teacher and said, "Interesting read. What's next?"

These two illustrate the famous Dorothy Parker quote, "This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It is to be heaved with great force." 

This is going to be a fun and exciting exercise. I'm not looking ahead on the list, preferring to be somewhat surprised each morning when I look and see what the topic is.

Beverage:  Edinburgh's Finest tea

Deb

30 Day Book Challenge

Facebook has a lot of junk floating around it. You can take a survey about anything. You can join a fan site. You can play games. I noticed Carole and David had these posts regarding "30 Day [insert noun] Challenge". For 30 days, you have a topic and you post something that, to you, reflects that topic. I've seen music and movies. Carole is working through the "30 Day Book Challenge". This was intriguing so I decided I'd do it too, but post my books here as well as on Facebook.

I started yesterday. I had to be out in the heat yesterday for a good 4 hours and that just roasts your logic and thought processes. So I didn't post anything, obviously. Today there will be 2 book posts. As I don't always post daily and, in some cases, I can't post daily, you'll need to bear with me getting caught up on occasion. I'm going to try to keep on the daily schedule, August 1 to 30.

Day number 1 was easy. "Your Favorite Book". I chose Macbeth by Shakespeare. I used to have Hamlet as my favorite book. One of my life guiding quotes is from Act 1, Scene 3, where Polonius gives advice to his son, Laertes.

"To thine own self be true And it must follow, as night the day, Thou can'st then be false to any man."

Of course we all know the "To be, or not to be, That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of trouble And by opposing, end them." 

Great quotes and scholars have debated "To be, or not to be" for millenia. Just what was Shakespeare saying here?

Macbeth is less quoted and it's usually the witches, "Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble", or "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes." Lady Macbeth's "Out damned spot! Out, I say!" in reference to her madness at being unable to get her hands clean of Duncan's blood.

It's not the abundance of quotes which can be tossed into a conversation that makes Macbeth my favorite. I've come to appreciate how rooted in Scottish history the play is. Shakespeare probably wrote the play for King James who was a Scot. As he fancied himself descended from Banquo, the commissioned work was intended to show how James was really the heir to the Scottish throne. James' ancestral opponents were shown to be horrible monsters capable of offing a king in an attempt to gain the throne they couldn't get any other way.

What I've been intrigued by is Lady Macbeth. This is one of Shakespeare's most complex plays. The main characters have nuances well beyond the words on the page. What could have driven a woman to force her husband to kill a sitting king? The dim history we have from the time period of the real Macbeth suggests Lady Macbeth's father was the rightful heir to the Scottish throne, but he was killed. The real Macbeth, who came by the throne legally, had a perfectly uneventful reign.The person we think we knew is all a product of a play wright creating something 400 years after the fact and catering strictly to his royal audience.

I think I should reread this.

Beverage:  Edinburgh's Finest tea

Deb

Othello, Act 3, Scene 3, Lines 155-161

I have been "working" on this post for over a month now. Each attempt distilled what I wanted to say even more. I would delete it and start again. I think I'll finally have the words exactly right this time.

Everyone knows I play World of Warcraft, the hugely popular online role playing game. I've been doing this since fall of 2006. I've met a lot of people, some nice, some not so nice, some in the middle. I've run a guild, a loose group of like-minded people, since December of 2007. I would say I have 20 people who have been with me for a long time. We've probably had 30 or so people who have passed through but what I offer with Spectacular Death is not for everyone and they have left; some nicely, some not so nicely and some in the middle.

While the anonymity of the Internet can cause the coarseness of humanity to show through, I run my guild and try to comport myself as I would want to be treated if I ran into these people in real life. It can be easy to have the snappy, snippy, sarcastic come back because you won't probably ever be standing in line at the grocery behind them. I just can't be that kind of a person.

So it was with great surprise that I and my guild became the target in late December of someone with an axe to grind. It started with a character whose name was exactly the same as mine with the exception of a "Two" added at the end. As you can chose your name, and my original spelling was already taken so I had to add letters to my original word, this was clearly designed to confuse people.

Then, the person joined one of the chat channels in the game that I have openly said I don't frequent and started advertising for people to join an all-Filipino guild to "combat the bigotry and hatefulness found in Spectacular Death". I didn't know about this recruiting tactic until I started getting private messages from other people in the game who know me wondering what I was doing. After this, posts started appearing on the public forum of the server on which I play telling people my guild and I were "bigoted and hateful towards Filipinos".

I tried, under the guise of a little used character, to find out exactly what what the person's beef with me or my guild was, but they would not talk to me. Others also tried, but got nowhere. For over 2 weeks, this was a nightly occurrence and I spent a great deal of game time explaining to people I had no idea what this person was complaining about. My enjoyment of the game was slipping away rapidly.

I have officers in the guild, people who have volunteered their time to help with the mechanics of running something with 277 names in it. Their counsel was to ignore it. Most of the time, the few people who take pot shots at me or my guild are ignored. But it became clear I was being specifically targeted as this person would log off when I logged on or would disappear when I was in the same town where they were soliciting members. When I left town, he or she would start up again.

Now, I have no problems with someone making an all-Filipino guild. More power to them, if they can succeed. But I do have a problem with my guild being denigrated for something we would not do in order to get attention. I have a code of conduct for players in my guild. It is absolute and I have kicked people from the guild who violate provisions in the code. It can be distilled to "Respect others. Period." Being bigoted or hateful toward an ethnic group would violate the code. I have people of Asian descent in my guild and they wondered where this person got the idea we were bigoted.

And Blizzard/Activison, the company that owns World of Warcraft, also takes a dim view of bigotry and open hatefulness. You have the option of "reporting" someone for actions which violate the Terms of Service or the End User License Agreement which everyone must accept to play the game. Harassment, hate speech, threats of violence are taken seriously and can garner you a permanent ban from the game. I know of people who were banned for any of those items.

At first, I laughed things off. But, as the weeks went by and the forum posts and yelling in the game continued, it began to get to me. "You must be strong. He can't see that it bothers you," my second in command told me. That's all well and good, but it's ruining my play time when all I do is deal with the comments from others about what was said. I was reporting the posts on the forum, telling the moderators that, while he's entitled to make a guild the way he wants, he's not entitled to belittle my guild in the process of making his. I dreaded logging on. I found the stress of playing, wondering what he was saying when I wasn't in a major town, overwhelming.

At the end of February, a casual friend talked to me about these incidents. He wanted to know why it bothered me. I had come to find out that over 55 people had been reporting this guy every time he showed up in town. When he chose to be on late at night, people stood around him and openly yelled at him in game. "People have your back," my friend said, "Why did this get to you? Answer that and you'll know how to handle the next event."

I really couldn't answer it until one day while surfing the web. I don't remember why these lines from Othello were quoted but this says what I couldn't.

Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing.

'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been a slave to thousands.

But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.

That's it.

I have worked very hard, since creating the guild, to have us be seen as a good group of good people. We are well-known for doing silly, wacky and crazy things, for trying to engage the entire server in events, for being nice and helpful. One person threatened to upend this.

"But they are just words," I hear you say. When people don't know who you are, words are all they have to go on. Even in a fake environment, people believe what they read running in chat channels on their screen. There are a good 11,000+ people on the server. I can't know all of them and they can't know me. If they only play from midnight to 6 a.m., chances are very good, I've never crossed paths with them at all, in nearly 4 years of playing. Of course it stands to reason they will "believe", in whatever capacity that is, what someone tells them, particularly if that someone seems very insistent on it. This is an attempt to rob me of my good name, to sully my reputation, as unfounded and baseless as it was, and that's what bothered me to my core.

I'm happy to say, thanks to the outpouring of support from those people who have crossed paths with me and my guild, the person saying these things has been banned from playing. I sometimes wish I knew who it was. Was it someone who I kicked? Was it someone who left in a huff? Was it someone who was jealous of us? Or was it just someone who drew a name out of a hat and decided to harass us? Was there a kernel of truth in what he or she was saying? Did someone from my guild make an inappropriate statement which was then blown completely out of proportion? I'll never know and I'm okay with that.

A month later, I can log on and be the silly guild leader everyone knows and not have to watch my back. I have learned that I have done what I set out to do, create a guild that is respected for who we are and whom people are not afraid to stand up for. If this were to happen again, I would probably feel the same upset feelings. This guild is very important to me and I protect it like a mother hen. But I also know that I can relax and if someone wants to claim we're bigots, they are going to have to prove it.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Earth Day

It's been 40 years. Man, do I feel old.

But, as pundits and other news sources have pointed out all day, we have come a long way since the Cuyahoga River caught fire in Cleveland. I vaguely remember that event.

What I remember is the push, initially by people such as Gaylord Nelson, to get us to recognize the earth as a precious resource. This, from the dBusiness News, sums up Earth Day.

In Spring 1970, Senator Gaylord Nelson created Earth Day as a way to “force this issue onto the national agenda.” That first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970. In December 1970, Congress authorized the creation of a new federal agency to tackle environmental issues, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

EPA was required to set criteria for National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) 120 days after the Clean Air Act passed and 150 days after EPA opened its doors.

In the last 40 years, EPA has ammended the Clean Air Act to set, and then refined, national air quality, auto emission, and anti-pollution standards. Standards have become stricter over time, with air permit limitations reducing emission limits. Stack Testing, following the EPA Test Methods, became a reliable and often required way to demonstrate compliance.

In the last 25 years, the Emission Measurement Center (EMC) of the EPA, Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS), has provided national leadership in furthering the science of characterizing and measuring air pollutant emissions. The EMC has produced nearly one hundred Test Methods for measuring air pollutants emitted from the entire spectrum of industrial processes causing air pollution. The EMC is the EPA's focal point for planning and conducting field test programs to provide quality data in support of regulatory development, producing validated emission test methods, and providing expert technical assistance for EPA, State, and local enforcement officials and industrial representatives involved in emission testing.

EPA has planned a celebration on the National Mall April 24 – 25 to commemorate this event.

It sort of struck me then and it still does now, that some of us have been recycling longer than Earth Day. It was a mind set. Victory Gardens of the Great War and of World War II never left some people's minds. I know gardening was a way of life when I was growing up. When my ex and I were able to afford a house, it had to have a plot of land for a garden. Although I don't garden as I used to, I sometimes think back to those times where harvesting fresh produce in the garden was the highlight of a day.

Recycling wasn't a word we used when I was growing up. You wore "hand-me downs". You used things until they couldn't be used again. It was just something we did.

Enter the heady days of the late 1980's. Disposable was everywhere and even those of us raised to buy cloth diapers and plastic pants because you could reuse diapers, succumbed to the allure of toss away and forget it. No more soaking in the toilet and bleach stains on pants. Diaper rash was cut down by the wicking away of moisture from baby's skin. Never you mind that these things are a layer in a landfill somewhere. If you didn't like something, out it went. If it broke, meh. Toss.

I would say it's only in the last 8-10 years that "reuseable" has become the buzz word. "Green" is not just a color, it's a way of life. We're still too much of a disposable society and we make too many things that can break within a year of their life. Why do people revere the Philco radios of yore? Not just because they were gorgeous pieces of furniture, but because they were built to last. My great grandparents had one. I'd give my eye teeth to have it now. I am not sure it would work but it was just beautiful. I remember it sitting against the west wall of the living room, next to great grandpa's enormous black wood chair.

So happy Earth Day to us. Every day should be Earth Day. Every day we should show reverence to the earth on which we live. Saint Elizabeth Seaton said it best. "Live simply so others may simply live."

As a side note: I did not take the above photo. It was taken by my brilliantly talented daughter. If you would like to see more of her nature photography, this is the link.

Beverage: English Breakfast tea

Deb

Galatians 6:7b

Perry turned 40 on Thursday, September 17th. Forty can be referred to as the "peak birthday". Once you reach 40, it's all downhill from here.

Of course, there are quotes about turning this age:

"I'm very pleased with each advancing year. It stems back to when I was forty. I was a bit upset about reaching that milestone, but an older friend consoled. me. 'Don't complain about growing old - many, many people do not have that privilege.'" -- Earl Warren

"Be wise with speed. A fool at forty is a fool indeed." -- Edward Young

"Every man over forty is a scoundrel." -- George Bernard Shaw

I have always said that no important birthday should go unpunished, as it were, and this one was no different. Although presents were not requested, I am different and will try to find something cheap that represents some item of the recipient's personality or life I have discovered. Perry is no different.

Both he and his wife, April, have a wonderful sense of humor, on par with my own. Everyone should get a balloon on their birthday. I taped the card to the string.

And the pretzels? Well, that is a very bad, but rather funny, inside joke.

I crammed that balloon into the box, the same box that Perry brought his homemade mead in back in August. I even sent back the inserts so he could refill the box. The balloon was so crammed that when he opened it, and he was warned NOT to use a sharp object, the balloon would pop out. That is the key. The box has to be just big enough for the balloon but not quite big enough that it sits comfortably.

I am given to understand he enjoyed it immensely. Pilcher liked the balloon, too.

As to the biblical reference above, look it up. April turns 40 in November. I have 2 months to plan an "appropriate" gift for her. I turn an older age at the end of November. I'm thinking of hiring someone to open my gifts.

And yet, what would life be like if you did not have friends with whom you could exchange gifts like this? A $4 balloon, a $3 card and a couple bags of pretzels. I can hear Perry's laughter as he opened the box.

With friends like them, well, life is more fun.

Happy Birthday, Perry.

Beverage: Dr. Pepper

Deb

Could it really be 40 years?

Certainly I'm going to post some recollections on the history of today. 40 years ago, my family and I watched grainy black and white footage on an equally grainy black and white TV of one man gingerly working his way backwards down a ladder to set foot on the moon. I remember the night, and it was night when this happened, being clear and the moon was visible, although I think it was only a half or three-quarter moon. We watched, mesmerized by what we were seeing, and I remember dad got up to go outside and gaze up at the moon, almost unbelieving that we could get live television feed or that a human left this planet to go to another.

He got out the telescope and aimed it at the orb in the sky, hoping to see, for his own eyes, evidence that the television footage was real. But the small telescope we had, which could make the craters on the moon clear, could not show the small size of a single man on the face.

I remember Walter Cronkite's rapt gaze at his monitors. I remember my mother setting down her ironing to sit on the sofa. I remember lying on my stomach on the floor looking up at the TV. We had it placed on top of the upright piano (which my sister has, incidentally). It was a balmy July night. The day had been warm and sunny but the night was perfect. All you could hear, out in the country, was the sound of the cows and the pigs and the crickets and Neil Armstrong's voice, "Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

About 15 years ago, Carole, her dad and I went to the Cernan Space Center at Triton College. Eugene Cernan, the last astronaut to walk on the moon, was making an appearance to talk about his adventures. We were members of the Center which has an IMAX Screen. At the time, it was one of two in a 500 mile radius. The other was at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Cernan had given Triton College money to build the screen and to fund an astronomy program. We saw a lot of movies there for a fraction of the cost of the MS&I. Plus, they had astronomers who gave monthy sky watching programs. I first saw the rings of Saturn via a January program then did.

Cernan talked about the rigors of space flight, how it felt to be headed to the moon, how it felt to know he would be the last man to walk on the surface and other items about space. He opened the floor up for questions and the first question was about colonizing Mars and the political ramifications of that. The room gave a collective sigh, not audible, but there nonetheless. The woman seemed almost to be baiting Cernan. But he gave a gracious, if long winded and obtuse answer.

Then he looked elsewhere for a question. Spotting Carole's hand in the air, he called on her. "What the ground like on the moon?" she asked. Cernan's face lit up and he spoke directly to her. "It's covered with this very fine gray dust," he said. He went on to talk about sinking into the dust and how they were concerned the dust would clog parts. Someone asked how the earth looked from the moon and he remarked how it appeared to be golf ball size and how hard it was to imagine that was home, where his wife, his kids, his dog and his pool were. It was clear he was profoundly affected by his experience. Carole was thrilled that she got to meet a real live astronaut.

So, I look up at the moon and remember doing the same thing 40 years ago. I remember the popcorn dad made. I remember the Pepsi we had, in glass bottles. I remember the crickets chirping and going to bed in awe of what we were able to accomplish as a country.

Beverage: English Breakfast

Deb